


and heaven, too

by pprfaith



Series: Wishlist 2016 [7]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Buffy Insert, F/M, Friendship, Heaven and Hell, Male-Female Friendship, Not Beta Read, Past Relationship(s), Post Chosen, Prompt Fic, Religious Undertones, Season 1, Wishlist_Fic, duh - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-10
Updated: 2016-12-10
Packaged: 2018-09-07 15:19:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8805973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pprfaith/pseuds/pprfaith
Summary: In which Chloe gets neither Lucifer nor his blonde friend.(Wishlist, Day 7)





	

**Author's Note:**

> For tsukana, who asked for BtVS/Lucifer with the prompts Old Friends, Drinks and Bad Life Choices. Interestingly enough, all of those spell 'Lucifer' backwards. I hope this is what you wanted.

+

Chloe and Lucifer are working at Lux. 

At least in theory. In practice their latest case turned up connected to half a dozen others and she came to the club with all the files because it’s the only place she has access to where she can spread everything out side by side. She’s been staring at reports and crime scene photos for the past three hours while Lucifer oscillated between the bar and his piano, occasionally dropping a grossly offensive yet oddly helpful comment about something pertaining to their dead body. 

Par for the course, really, but he has to be completely plastered right now and Chloe is aching for either a coffee or a week in the Bahamas. 

Since neither is about to happen, unless Lucifer’s ultra-sleek and hip nightclub magically manifests a coffee machine, she’s grumpy. 

And her feet hurt. 

She’s about to lay into her partner for being useless when the door opens. If that’s Maze come to passive aggressively insult Chloe _again_ she’s out of here and he’s off the case. Insightful or not, Chloe has her limits and Lucifer’s friend likes to poke at them with big sticks. 

Besides, she promised Trixie a baking session after homework tonight and she’s almost sure they have neither sugar nor flour, nor anything else you need to bake at home. Bad mom.

It’s not Maze. 

In fact, it’s the opposite of maze. The woman who comes down the stairs is blonde, tan and dressed in a professional skirt and blouse ensemble in cream and gold, along with heels that Chloe is sure she couldn’t afford if she paid with her soul. 

Lucifer looks up from the piano keys and suddenly he’s off the bench, rushing toward the foot of the stairs, one hand extended and a delighted grin on his face. The woman takes the hand and lets herself be reeled in, hugging him. 

They kiss, a brief, familiar peck on the lips, and then the eccentric Chloe calls her partner spins the woman off the last step and onto the floor proper. “Buffy, my dear. What a delight! What brings you to the City of Angels? Business or pleasure?”

The last is asked with a subtle inflection, like there is a layer beyond the obvious question. With Lucifer, there often is. 

The woman, Buffy, shrugs. “I don’t know, is emotionally blackmailing your ex to help you out with a work thing and rubbing your awesomeness into his face at the same time business or pleasure?”

“Pleasure,” Chloe answers, promptly, and then feels herself blush as the other woman looks at her for the first time. 

Lucifer beams manically. “Buffy, allow me to introduce you to Detective Chloe Decker. I have been helping her solve cases. For the police.” He turns his grin on his friend, like a child expecting praise.

Buffy snorts. “And she hasn’t shot you yet? Wow, Detective, you must be a saint.”

Lucifer grimaces, as befits his role. Chloe just shrugs and offers her hand, “I have an eight-year-old at home. I treat the two of them a lot alike.”

Buffy laughs, takes the hand and offers, “Buffy Summers. Nice to meet you.”

“Detective,” Lucifer drawls, “a break?”

“You weren’t working anyway, Lucifer.”

That earns her a pout, which has her rolling her eyes until Lucifer heads for the bar and Buffy stops him, “Coffee, Luci? I’ve been in three separate countries in the past two days, I need caffeine or I’ll conk out as soon as I sit down.”

“Upstairs, then, come along,” he decides and offers her his arm, extending the other one to Chloe who rolls her eyes again – she does that far too often around him – but takes it. 

In his penthouse, Buffy strips off her heels and flings herself at the sofa like she never means to move again while Lucifer makes them all coffee. When he makes his way over with the tray, Buffy sits up long enough for him to sit down, then leans into his side and goes right back to boneless bliss. 

Lucifer gives her a fond look and passes Chloe her mug. 

“How long have you two known each other?” she asks, curiosity getting the better of her. She’s known Lucifer for months now, but most of his life is still a riddle to her. The scars, his lack of a past, Maze. He knows everyone but no-one knows him but this, this isn’t just sex and casual acquaintance like most of Lucifer’s ‘friends’. This woman knows Lucifer, is comfortable with him. 

The detective in her can’t not ask. 

Buffy shrugs, already cradling her own mug, inhaling the steam like it has healing properties. Lucifer leans back, one arm draped over the back of the sofa behind her. “Almost five years now, yes? I deemed it prudent, upon arriving here, to seek the approval of the guardian of this realm, and she gave it.” He beams down at Buffy.

“Sorry? Realm? Do you mean L.A.?”

Buffy shakes her head, but it’s Lucifer who answers, “Earth, Detective. Once I left Hell, I also left my domain. Here, others rule, and only a fool would ignore them. Imagine my surprise when, instead of the girl I expected to find, there was a woman, and one with her own measure of grace in her. We bonded over being cast out of Heaven, I believe.”

Buffy nods, sipping her coffee happily. “Yep. And you’re still telling everyone the truth. One day, that’s gonna get you in trouble, Luci.”

He flicks her concern away with two fingers. “I am what I am and I don’t lie.”

“No, you just confuzzle people with the truth.”

“It’s not my fault if they can’t keep up,” he counters, primly, and Chloe stops trying to make sense of the conversation. Hell? Heaven? That sounds almost like Buffy isn’t just in on Lucifer’s delusion, but actively encourages it. Shares it? Does she honestly believe she was cast out of heaven?

“Are you an angel, or something?” she blurts. Smooth going there. 

But Buffy just laughs. “Nah. But I died at one point and went to Heaven.”

“You… died.”

“Yep. My friends brought me back. Dark magic, pagan deities, it was a whole big whooping mess, but it worked out in the end. Here I am, not dead.”

“Remembering Heaven,” Lucifer tags on. He’s not smiling now. 

Buffy finds his hand, squeezes it in silent sympathy.

“Is that a bad thing?” Chloe asks, because in for a penny. And every little bit she can find out about Lucifer’s delusion may one day help her unravel it. 

“Is that-,” he echoes, trails off. “Heaven is perfection, Detective. It’s love and warmth and contentment and happiness. It’s the absence not only of grief and loss and sadness, but the absence of the mere knowledge of the existence of such things. It’s pure bliss. Imagine having that. Imagine being so incandescently happy that you could – “ he pauses, vice going bitter. “Then imagine having it all ripped away and being told you can never have it back.”

He shakes his head. “Not remembering would be kinder, but then, that’s half the punishment, isn’t it? Knowing what you lost. My Father has always been a vindictive, vengeful bastard.” 

It’s like the scars on his back. Chloe doesn’t believe a word of the story he tells her, but the emotion behind it, the loss in his voice, the vulnerability and the pain, like a little boy lost, those she believes. Those are too real to ever not believe. 

And like with the scars disfiguring his back, she doesn’t know how to react. So she downs her too hot coffee in one go and stands. “I need to pick up Trixie from school. Is it okay if I bring her by so we can wrap up downstairs? I think we’re close to something.”

She almost had something like a pattern before Buffy showed up. Lucifer shrugs and nods. “Of course. See you soon.”

+

She gets Trix and then they get ingredients for their baking fest before returning to Lux. Chloe is lucky her kid adores Lucifer, or she’d probably kick up a fuss over having to sit still and do her homework while her mother works. 

As it is, they enter the club to find its owner bent over the open files, comparing pictures, Buffy nowhere in sight. Chloe steers her daughter away from the gruesome evidence toward a booth, sets her up there with homework and a drink, and then returns to Lucifer’s side. 

“You found something?”

He hums, thoughtful, takes one last look at the pictures and then shakes his head. “No. I thought I did, but it’s not what I thought it was.”

“Where’d you leave Buffy?”

“She fell asleep upstairs. I left her there. Despite not being human, she sleeps almost as much as one. It’s boring.”

“Not being human?” Her left eyebrow rises on its own, no input from Chloe at all.

He sighs, the way he usually does when he thinks she’s being dense. “I told you, she is the Guardian. A more-than-human status is implied.”

She snorts. “Sorry if I can’t keep all your fantastic tales and flights of fancy straight, Lucifer. There isn’t exactly a guidebook.”

He huffs. 

Making sure Trixie is still preoccupied, she asks what she really wants to know. Not out of jealousy, or anything. It’s just… interesting. “So, are you sleeping with her?”

“Why, Detective? Would you like to join us?” Immediately the usual saucy grin is back on his face like it lives there. 

“Please don’t,” Buffy pleads, stepping out of the short hallway leading to the elevator. “And FYI, it was only once.” She wrinkles her nose. “Bad life choice.”

“Is he that bad in bed?” Chloe can’t resist.

While Lucifer is still gaping and trying to rally some sort of defense, Buffy laughs. “Hell no. Just, it wasn’t a good idea.”

“A reminder neither of us needed, I’d say,” Lucifer adds, shooting Chloe a _so there_ look. Or maybe a _bitch please_ look. They lines blur with him. Such a diva. 

Right. Remembering Heaven. 

Chloe sighs, unsure if the man in front of her will ever make sense. Ever. 

She’s saved from having to answer by Buffy discovering Trix. “Oh, is that the kid with the same mental maturity as Luci?”

“Mhm. My daughter, Trixie.”

Upon hearing her name, the girl looks up and, finding someone new in the room, comes bouncing over, distracting both Buffy and Lucifer enough for Chloe to get back to work. 

There’ll be time to unravel Lucifer after this murderer is caught.

+

“Why don’t you just show her?” Buffy asks, later, back on the sofa, her legs in the Devil’s lap as he digs clever fingers into the arches of her feet. 

“Show her what?” he asks, playing dumb. She kicks at him and he tickles her in retaliation. Only this afternoon Angel almost started yelling when she told him she couldn’t have dinner with him because she was visiting Lux. 

He doesn’t like her being friendly with the Devil. But the man giving her a foot rub, kidding with a police woman, playing piano for a little girl, that’s not the Devil. 

Before he became the Lord of Hell, this man was an Angel of God and Buffy has always treated him like one. And he, in return, has always acted like one, around her. 

Sammael, not Lucifer, even if he’s likely to cut out her tongue if she ever says that out loud. 

“Who you are.”

He stays silent surprisingly long, fingers moving up to her calves as he thinks. Then, finally, when he’s almost up to her knees, he says, very quietly, “I want her to believe me. To have faith.”

In him. He can’t even say it. 

Buffy plucks his hand off her knee and gives it a squeeze. “Give her time,” she tells him, because she honestly thinks Chloe is clever enough to get there. And strong enough to survive it. 

“Until then,” she decides, poking her friend in the side, “let’s go out. Dinner’s on you.”

“Of course, my dear,” he demures, flirting as always. 

Buffy stands, stretches and holds out her hand to pull him up after her. “And don’t you forget it,” she quips. He chuckles, some of his sadness turning into his usual happy-go-lucky attitude.

It’ll do. 

+

**Author's Note:**

> Come tumble with me [here](http://www.wordsformurder.tumblr.com/).


End file.
